Vietnam Personal

July 4, 1967. A chaplain gave him a notebook. He did not ask for it. He was a mechanic from Michigan and he had nothing to write. The chaplain said write to yourself. So he wrote to himself. He wrote in the monsoon and he wrote in the dry season and he wrote on the wire at night when the treeline was dark and the dark was the thing you watched. He wrote after the first man he knew was killed and he wrote after the village burned and he wrote after Hue when there was nothing left to write and he wrote anyway. The notebook held the things his hands could not. Danny Kovalchik is nineteen. He ...

When it first appeared, A Rumor of War brought home to American readers, with terrifying vividness and honesty, the devastating effects of the Vietnam War on the soldiers who fought there. And while it is a memoir of one young man's experiences and therefore deeply personal, it is also a book that speaks powerfully to today's students about the larger themes of human conscience, good and evil, and the desperate extremes men are forced to confront in any war.

An absorbing and definitive modern history of the Vietnam War from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Secret War. Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a battlefield humiliation for France in 1954, then a vastly greater one for the...

In this comprehensive history, Stanley Karnow demystifies the tragic ordeal of America's war in Vietnam. The book's central theme is that America's leaders, prompted as much by domestic politics as by global ambitions, carried the United States into Southeast Asia with little regard for the realities of the region. Karnow elucidates the decision-making process in Washington and Asia and recounts the political and military events that occurred after the Americans arrived in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, Christopher Goscha tells the full history of Vietnam, from antiquity to the present day. Generations of emperors, rebels, priests, and colonizers left complicated legacies in this remarkable country. Periods of Chinese, French, and Japanese rule reshaped and modernized Vietnam, but so too did the colonial enterprises of the Vietnamese themselves as they extended their influence southward from the Red River Delta.

Reviewed by Doreen Chombu for Readers' Favorite U.S. Marine Vietnam Sacrifice is a memoir by Raymond Isaac Lindsey, a Vietnam veteran, of his experiences after the war, written by his wife, Crystal Mary Lindsey. At nineteen, Raymond (Ray) fought in the Vietnam War against children recruited by the Viet Cong. The experience left him with physical and mental injuries. His therapy and treatment in Japan caused more harm, and when he returned home, he experienced symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Despite having a loving family and friends, Ray felt like he was in another world ...

A thought-provoking exploration of Bruce Springsteen’s iconic album, Born in the U.S.A.—a record that both chronicled and foreshadowed the changing tides of modern America On June 4, 1984, Columbia Records issued what would become one of the best-selling and most impactful rock albums of all...

The story of the indomitable American POWs who endured "Alcatraz," the Hanoi prison camp where North Vietnam locked up its most dangerous and subversive prisoners, and the wives who fought to bring them home. As these men suffered in Hanoi, their wives launched an extraordinary campaign that would ultimately spark the POW/MIA movement. When the survivors finally returned, one would receive the Medal of Honor, another became a U.S. Senator, and a third still serves in Congress.

Drawing on hundreds of accounts by soldiers, politicians, aid workers, entertainers and the Vietnamese people, Paul Ham reconstructs for the first time the full history of our longest military campaign. From the commitment to engage, through the fight over conscription and the rise of the anti - war movement, to the tactics and horror of the battlefi eld, Ham exhumes the truth about this politicians' war - which sealed the fate of 50,000 Australian servicemen and women.

A chronicle of the divergent journeys of a father, who fled post-war Vietnam on a small boat to find refuge in the United States, and his American-born daughter, who ventures to Vietnam as an adult, capturing the stark contrast between their perspectives on their shared homeland, as they search for common ground and a path toward mutual healing.

Vietnam - There & Back: A Combat Medic's Chronicle is a candid account of the time when Jim Purtell and several other combat vets found themselves conducting operations in the jungles of Vietnam during and after the Tet Offensive. Purtell describes in gritty detail what it was like to live and fight with an infantry company only to return to anti-Vietnam sentiment so strong that he and his fellow veterans felt nobody cared about them or the sacrifices they made.

The publication of Jarhead launched a new career for Anthony Swofford, earning him accolades for its gritty and unexpected portraits of the soldiers who fought in the Gulf War. It spawned a Hollywood movie. It made Swofford famous and wealthy. It also nearly killed him. Now with the same...

During Vietnam, the basic role of the USMC gunship squadrons was to protect the transport helicopters during medevac missions, troop insertions and extractions, resupply missions, and supporting the Marines on the ground during operations and patrols. Basically, whenever the Marines or South Vietnam friendlies got in trouble the gunships were dispatched to assist them.

What happens when a man committed to non-violence finds himself wearing a badge? In The Buddha and the Badge, Michael Jaquish recounts a life shaped not by certainty, but by a relentless search for meaning, purpose, and inner stillness. Raised with a deep respect for the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi, and the Buddha, Michael comes of age during a turbulent era in American history. As his family moves from place to place, he begins to develop a contemplative nature that sets him apart from the world around him. In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, he is called to military service—...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘His masterpiece’ Antony Beevor, Spectator ‘A masterful performance’ Sunday Times ‘By far the best book on the Vietnam War’ Gerald Degroot, The Times, Book of the Year Vietnam became the Western world’s most divisive modern conflict, precipitating a...

The experience of the Vietnam War is almost impossible to grasp - the fear, smell, pain, and camaraderie. Boys were turned into men, men were transformed into soldiers, and then from soldiers to warriors. These warriors had wives who shared in their transformations. Some marriages were strengthened, while for others men and their families were left emotionally and spiritually battered. Focusing in on a singular company’s experience of war and its eventual homecoming, Andrew Wiest discusses the shared experience of combat and both the darkness and resiliency of war’s aftermath.

Dan Lyons resigned as dean of Gonzaga University in Spokane to become the free world’s leading advocate of winning the war in Vietnam, visiting seventeen times between 1963 and 1975. His five hundred daily radio and television broadcasts, plus his nationwide weekly columns and debates on...

Ha-Le Thai knew that escaping Vietnam for freedom in a cramped, leaking boat would not be easy. She imagined that building a new life in Australia, from little more than a hope and a dream, would stretch her courage and strength to its limits. But the warrior and refugee never guessed that her biggest challenge of all would be motherhood. A product of two cultures, Ha-Le’s daughter is educated, confident, and excited to introduce her Australian boyfriend to the family.